Who are we ?

ABES was created in 1994 to implement Sudoc
(Système Universitaire de Documentation or University Documentation System), the union catalogue of France’s higher education libraries. Sudoc opened in 2001 and has proved a resounding success. It covers the collections of 1 419 member libraries along with the 1,793 public or private libraries from the Sudoc-PS network which specialises in referencing serial publications. With over 10 million bibliographic records, 32 million localised documents and 24 million public queries in 2013, it plays a leading role in the French higher education and research information system.

Other catalogues have been gradually added to enhance the resources on offer : in 2007, Calames
, online catalogue of manuscripts and archives in French university and research libraries. In 2011 , IdRef
, a reference database of Sudoc’s authority records.
Another sector in which ABES has made significant efforts is that of digital theses : since 2007, ABES manages Star application, the national system for referencing, submission and long term preservation, and since 2010, Step (Referencing theses in progress), application which are integrated into theses.fr
.Finally, ABES purchases digital resources for France’s universities and Public Scientific and Technical Research Establishments (EPSTs) using grouped orders and national licences
, as part of the ISTEX
national project.